


When You Say Nothing At All

by searchingwardrobes



Series: Fandom Birthday Playlist [23]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emma is an open book, F/M, Fluff, Killian's thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 09:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19226260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingwardrobes/pseuds/searchingwardrobes
Summary: Killian knows he’s the wordsmith in the relationship, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how Emma feels about him. After all, she’s an open book to him.





	When You Say Nothing At All

**Author's Note:**

> *For jennjenn615 on her birthday.  
> *Based on the song by Allison Krauss.

_It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart_    
 _Without saying a_ _word_ _you can light up the dark_    
 _Try as I may I could never explain what I hear when you don't say a thing_

It isn’t so much the way she says “Hook” on a quick exhale of breath. It’s more the way her face softens, the light of recognition in her eyes as they flit across his features. He says it with a cocky tilt to his head and batted lashes, but it’s only because he knows his blatant flirting is what she needs to release the tension gathering across her shoulder blades. 

“Did you miss me?”

The thing is, he knows she did. It’s written all over her face. 

****************************************************************

“You can see a future here, a happy one.”

Emma turns to him with fire in her eyes, and he bites back a cocky grin.  He‘ s been pushing her buttons all day, but he rather likes the spark it ignites in her. Her parents tiptoe around her, so afraid they’ll push her to the breaking point. Killian, on the other hand will do no such coddling. For one, Swan is so much stronger than that. For another, he’ll be damned if he lets her sabotage what she clearly wants out of fear. He told her in Neverland when he won her heart it wouldn’t be through trickery but because she wanted him. He had said it so confidently because everything in her: her quickened breaths when he was near, the way she couldn’t stop staring at his lips, the way she swayed closer to him when they spoke without conscious thought. She already wanted  him,  it was obvious. All he had to do was prove he was more than a philandering pirate. 

“Let me guess,” she snapped, “with you?”

The Wicked Witch made her dramatic appearance the second the words were out of Emma’s mouth, so Killian didn’t have a chance to call her on it. What he would have said was,  _ Yes, actually, it’s written all over your face _ .  

Relief was written all over her face moments later as he coughed up water and gasped for air. Then there was the way her hands lingered on his chest, her fingers lightly caressing the exposed skin. Later, when he wasn’t so worried about his bloody cursed lips, he would remember that touch, warm even through her gloves. 

**************************************************************

“I’m quite perceptive, love, and this,” he gestured between them, “is avoiding me.”

Her face softened, and she leaned across the space between them, pressing her lips to his. It was soft and slow, and much too quick, but the tenderness of it conveyed everything she couldn’t say. A warm steadiness filled him, and he sighed against her mouth as she pulled away. 

“Just be patient,” Emma told him, and that little smile she gave him might just be the death of him. 

If that weren’t enough, he still felt slightly dazed as she walked away, her cheeks flushed as she glanced back. The sway of her hips was clearly intentional and maybe a bit exaggerated, the minx. Whatever the hell Netflix was, he couldn’t wait to partake of it with her.

“Sure,” he mumbled as sexual frustration pulsed in his veins, “I’ve got all the time in the world. Until a monster comes along and kills me.”

***********************************************************

He understands why Emma and Regina have to go searching for Lily, but he still worries about what could happen. The Dark One is determined to turn this gorgeous woman of light into something dark and twisted, and he can’t let that happen. He also doesn’t put much faith in Regina’s ability to be her moral compass. The woman is far too self-centered, especially where his Swan is concerned. 

So  he takes her hands and pulls her away from the rest of the group. He may be ignorant of what it means to be a hero like her parents, but he’s unfortunately an expert on what the darkness can do. After all, he still remembers that naval lieutenant he once was. The one who thought Liam hung the moon and would rather die than disappoint him. What would Liam think of him now?

“Be careful, Swan,” he tells her, trying to hide how deep his worry runs, “as someone who started on the side of good and went dark, take my advice . . . Vengeance is  tempting.  The darkness always is. Resist it.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

“I didn’t have anything to live for. You have your parents, Henry -”

“You.”

The smile on her face makes his heart swell. The fact that she would put him in the same category as her parents and son is almost more than he can take. His own smile is broad. He can feel it stretching muscles in his face he forgot he even had. Muscles that are getting used for the first time in centuries with Emma Swan in his life.

“Aye . . .me, and I you. That’s what’s kept me on my path now. Use whatever it takes to stay on yours.”

As he bends to kiss her chastely (her family is watching, after all), she rises to meet him. It’s a simple kiss, but he can still sense her hesitancy to leave him, especially in the way she grips both his hand and his hook tightly. It occurs to him then that they haven’t gone a single day without seeing one another since they left New York, and he misses her already. The slow way Emma ends the kiss and the way her hands linger for a heartbeat communicates that she feels the same.  

*********************************************************

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Emma exclaims as he pulls the chain over his neck. 

“Calm down, Swan,” he assures her, “I’m not proposing.”

Emma Swan freaking out over a ring is no surprise at all to Killian. Emma’s next expression, however simultaneously startles him and fills him with hope. It’s always been hilarious to him how expressive her face can be sometimes, and right now her eyebrows are doing that thing when she wants to roll her eyes but won’t let herself. She tips her head to the side, and her lips almost curl into a scowl.

Bloody hell, Emma Swan wants to marry him. 

He presses  Liam’s  ring into her palm solemnly, knowing that he’d move heaven and  earth  to give her that  white  picket fence she spoke of. He kisses her: once, twice, pouring as much love into it as he can muster. 

Bloody hell, Emma Swan wants to marry him. 

_The smile on your face lets me know that you need me_    
 _There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me_    
 _A touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall_    
 _Now you say it best when you say nothing at all_

   



End file.
